Two Wisconsin passenger rail ideas back on the study track

Excerpt: Chicago to Pacific Northwest: Montana’s Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority landed a $500,000 grant to study reviving the North Coast Hiawatha, a long-distance Amtrak route discontinued in 1979. This route (which would be renamed to avoid confusion with the current Chicago-Milwaukee line) would parallel the Empire Builder, linking Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul to Seattle and Portland, but on a more southerly course through the largest cities of Montana and North Dakota. In Wisconsin, the line could follow either the Empire Builder route through La Crosse or the proposed route through Madison and Eau Claire — or both, if it ran two round trips daily, says Dan Bucks, the authority’s development chair. Read more.